1899-10-08- SS Leo XIII - Depuis Le Jour
Depuis Le Jour
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON THE EDUCATION OF THE CLERGY
September 8, 1899.
To Our Venerable Brothers the Archbishops, Bishops and Clergy of France.
Venerable Brothers, Dearly Beloved Sons:
1. Since the day we were raised to the Pontifical Chair France has been ever the object to us of a special solicitude and affection. For from her God, in the unfathomable designs of His mercy over the world, has in the course of ages by preference chosen Apostolic men destined to preach the true faith to the limits of the globe, and to carry the light of the Gospel to the nations yet plunged in the darkness of paganism. He predestined her to be the defender of His Church and the instrument of His great works: Gesta Dei per Francos.
2. Obviously this high mission entails duties many and grave. Wishing, like our predecessors, to see France faithfully fulfil the glorious mandate wherewith she has been entrusted, we have on several occasions during our long pontificate addressed to her our advice, our encouragement, our exhortations. This we did in a special way in our Encyclical Letter of February 8, 1884, Nobilissima Gallorum gens, and in our letter of February 16, 1892, published in French and beginning with the words: "Au milieu des sollicitudes." Our words were not without fruit, and we know from you, Venerable Brothers, that a large portion of the French people ever holds in honor the faith of their ancestors and faithfully observes the obligations it imposes. On the other hand, it could not escape us that the enemies of this holy faith have not been idle and have succeeded in banishing every religious principle from a large number of families, which, in consequence, live in lamentable ignorance of revealed truth, and in complete indifference to all that concerns their spiritual interests and the salvation of their souls.
3. While therefore with good reason we congratulate France on being a focus of apostolic work among nations destitute of the faith, we are also bound to encourage the efforts of those of her sons who, enrolled in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, are laboring to evangelize their own people, to preserve them from the invasion of naturalism and incredulity, with their fatal and inevitable consequences. Called by the will of God to be the savour of the world, priests must always, and above all things, remember that they are by the very institution of Jesus Christ, "the salt of the earth,"[1] and hence St. Paul, writing to Timothy, justly concluded that "by their charity, their faith and their purity, they must be an ex ample to the faithful in their words and in their relations with their neighbors."[2]
4. That such is true of the French clergy, taken as a whole, has always been a great consolation to us to learn, Venerable Brothers, from the quadrennial reports you send us concerning the state of your dioceses, conformably to the Constitution of Sixtus V, and from the oral communications we receive from you whenever we have the happiness of conversing with you and receiving your confidences. Yes, dignity of life, ardor of faith, a spirit of devotedness and sacrifice, a zeal characterized by enthusiasm and generosity, an inexhaustible charity toward their neighbor, energy in all noble and fruitful enterprises making for the glory of God, the salvation of souls and the welfare of their country-these are the precious qualities traditional among the French clergy, and we are happy to be able here to render to them a public and fatherly testimony.
Still, precisely on account of the deep and tender affection we have for them, and at the same time to perform a duty of our Apostolic ministry and respond to the keen desire we feel to see them ever acting up to their great mission, we have resolved, Venerable Brothers, to treat in this letter of certain points to which present circumstances peremptorily call the conscientious attention of the chief pastors of the French Church and of the priests who work under their jurisdiction.
5. And in the first place it is clear that the more important, complex and difficult an office is the longer and more careful should be the preparation undergone by those who are called to fill it. But is there on earth a dignity higher than that of the priesthood or a ministry imposing a heavier responsibility than that whose object is the sanctification of all the free acts of man? Is it not of the government of souls that the Fathers have rightly said that it is "the art of arts;" that is, the most important and most delicate of all tasks to which a man may be applied for the benefit of his kind? - "Ars artium regimen animarum?"[3] Nothing must then be neglected to prepare those whom a divine vocation calls to this mission in order that they may fulfill it worthily and fruitfully.
6. To begin with, from among the young those are to be selected in whom the Most High has sown the seeds of a vocation. We are aware that, thanks to your wise recommendations, in many dioceses of France the priests of the different parishes, especially in country districts, apply themselves with a zeal and self-sacrifice which we cannot sufficiently praise in guiding themselves the studies of children in whom they have observed a marked tendency to piety and an aptitude for intellectual work. The presbyteral schools are thus the first step, as it were, of the stairs which from the junior to the senior seminaries carry up to the priesthood those young men to whom the Saviour repeats the appeal He addressed to Peter and Andrew, to John and James, "Leave your nets; follow Me, I will make you fishers of men."[4]
7. With regard to the junior seminary, this very valuable institution has been frequently and justly compared to the beds in which are set apart such plants as call for the most particular and assiduous care as the only way to make them bear fruit and produce a recompense for the labors of their cultivation. On this subject, we renew the recommendation addressed by our predecessor, Pius IX, to the Bishops in his Encyclical of December 8, 1849. This is itself based on one of the most important decisions of the Fathers of the Council of Trent. To France belongs the glory of having held it in most account during the present century, for of the ninety-four dioceses in the country there is not one which is not endowed with one or more junior seminaries.
8. We know, Venerable Brothers, the solicitude which you bestow on these institutions so justly dear to your pastoral zeal, and we congratulate you on it. The priests who labor, under your superintendence, for the formation of the youth called to enroll itself later on in the ranks of the sacerdotal army, cannot too often meditate before God on the exceptional importance of the mission with which you entrust them. They have not simply to instruct their children in the elements of letters and human science, like the general run of masters-that is the least part of their task. Their attention, zeal and devotion must be ever on the watch and active, in order, on the one hand, to study continually, under the eye and in the light of God, the souls of the children and the indications of their vocation to the service of the altar, and, on the other, to help the inexperience and feebleness of their young disciples in order to protect the precious grace of the Divine call against all deadly influences, both from without and from within. They have therefore to exercise a ministry that is humble, laborious and delicate, and requires constant abnegation. To sustain their courage in the fulfillment of their duties, they will take care to temper it in the purest sources of the spirit of faith. They must never lose sight of the fact that the children whose intelligence, heart and character they are engaged in forming are not being prepared for earthly functions, however legitimate or honorable. The Church confides those children to them in order that they may one day be fit to become priests; that is to say, missionaries of the Gospel, continuers of the work of Jesus Christ, distributers of His Grace and His Sacraments. Let this purely supernatural consideration incessantly imbue their double function as professors and educators, and be the leaven, so to say, which is to be mixed with the best flour, according to the Gospel parable, so as to transform it into sweet and substantial bread.[5]
9. And as an abiding thoughtfulness for the first and indispensable formation of the spirit and virtues of the priesthood should inspire the masters of your junior seminaries in their relations with their pupils, so, too, the system of study and the whole economy of discipline must be allied to this same primary and directing idea. We are not unaware, Venerable Brothers, that you are to a certain extent obliged to reckon with the State programme and with the conditions imposed by it for obtaining university degrees, owing to the fact that in certain cases such degrees are required of priests engaged in the management of free colleges under the patronage of the Bishops and religious congregations, or in the higher teaching of Catholic faculties which you have so laudably established. It is, moreover, of sovereign importance for the maintenance of the influence of the clergy on society that they count among their ranks a sufficient number of priests yielding nothing in science, of which degrees are the official evidence, to the masters whom the State trains for its Iyceums and universities.
10. Nevertheless, after making all the allowances imposed by circumstances for this exigency of the State programme, the studies of aspirants to the priesthood must remain faithful to the traditional methods of past ages. It is these which have produced the eminent men of whom France is so justly proud - the Petaus, Thomassins, Mabillons and many others, to say nothing of your Bossuet, called the Eagle of Meaux, because in loftiness of thought and nobility of expression his genius soars in the highest regions of Christian science and eloquence. The study of belles lettres rendered mighty aid in making these men valiant and useful workers in the service of the Church and capable of writing works which were truly worthy to pass down to posterity, and which contribute even to-day to the defense and propagation of revealed truth. For the belles lettres have the property, when taught by skilful Christian masters, of rapidly developing in the souls of young men all the germs of intellectual and moral life, whilst at the same time contributing accuracy and broadness to the judgment and elegance and distinction to expression.
11. This consideration assumes special importance when applied to Greek and Latin literature, the depositaries of those masterpieces of sacred science which the Church with good reason counts among her most precious treasures. Half a century ago, at that period (all too brief!) of true liberty, during which the bishops of France were free to meet and concert such measures as they deemed best calculated to further the progress of religion, and, at the same time, most profitable to the public peace, several of your Provincial Councils, Venerable Brothers, recommended in the most express terms the culture of the Latin tongue and literature. Even then your colleges deplored the fact that the knowledge of Latin in your country tended to diminish.[6]
12. But if the methods of pedagogy in vogue in the State establishments have been for several years past progressively reducing the study of Latin and suppressing the exercises in prose and poetry which our fathers justly considered should hold a large place in college classes, the junior seminaries must put themselves on their guard against these innovations, inspired by utilitarian motives and working to the detriment of the solid formation of the mind. To the ancient methods so often justified by their results we would freely apply the words of St. Paul to his disciple Timothy, and with the apostles we would say to you, Venerable Brothers, "Guard the deposit"[7] with jealous care. If it should be destined-which God forbid!-one day to disappear from the other public schools, let your junior seminaries and free colleges keep it with an intelligent and patriotic solicitude. Doing so, you will be imitating the priests of Jerusalem, who, saving the sacred fire of the temple from the barbarian invader, so hid it as to be able to find it again and restore it to its splendor when the evil day should have passed.[8]
13. Once in possession of the Latin tongue-the key, so to say, of sacred science-and their mental faculties sufficiently developed by the study of the belles lettres, young men destined for the priesthood pass from the junior to the senior seminary. There they will prepare themselves by piety and the exercise of the priestly virtues for the reception of Holy Orders, while devoting themselves to the study of philosophy and theology.
14. In our Encyclical "Aeterni Patris," which we once again recommend to the attentive perusal of your seminarists and their masters, we declared, with St. Paul as our authority, that it is by the empty subtleties of false philosophy "per philosophiam et inanem fallaciam" that the minds of the faithful are most frequently led astray and the purity of the faith corrupted among men, we added, and the events of the last twenty years have furnished bitter confirmation of the reflections and apprehensions we expressed at the time. If one notes the critical condition of the times in which we live and ponders on the state of affairs in public and private life he will have no difficulty in seeing that the cause of the evils which oppress us, as well as those which menace, lies in the fact that erroneous opinions on all subjects, human and divine, have gradually percolated from philosophical schools through all ranks of society, and have come to be accepted by a large number of minds.[9]
15. We renew our condemnation of those teachings of philosophy which have merely the name, and which by striking at the very foundation of human knowledge lead logically to universal skepticism and to irreligion. We are profoundly grieved to learn that for some years past some Catholics have felt at liberty to follow in the wake of a philosophy which under the specious pretext of freeing human reason from all ideas and from all illusions, denies it the right of affirming anything beyond its own operations, thus sacrificing to a radical subjectivism all the certainties which traditional metaphysics, consecrated by the authority of the strongest thinkers, laid down as the necessary and unshakable foundations for the demonstration of the existence of God, the spirituality and immortality of the soul, and the objective reality of the exterior world. It is to be deeply regretted that this doctrinal skepticism, of foreign importation and Protestant origin, should have been received with so much favor in a country so justly celebrated for its love of clearness of thought and expression. We know, Venerable Brothers, how far you share our well-grounded anxiety on this subject, and we reckon on you to redouble your solicitude and vigilance in shutting out this fallacious and dangerous philosophy from the teaching in your seminaries, and to honor more than ever the methods we recommended in the above-quoted Encyclical of August 4, 1879.
16. In our times the students in your junior and senior seminaries can less than ever afford to be strangers to the study of physical and natural science. To it, therefore, they must apply themselves-but in due measure and in wise proportions. It is by no means necessary that in the scientific course annexed to the study of philosophy the professors should feel themselves obliged to expound in detail the almost innumerable applications of physical and natural sciences in the different branches of human industry. It is enough that their pupils have an accurate knowledge of the main principles and summary conclusions, so as to be able to solve the objections which infidels draw from these sciences against the teachings of Revelation.
17. It is of capital importance that the students of your senior seminaries should study, for at least two years, with great care, "rational" philosophy, which, as the learned Benedictine Mabillon, the glory of his order and of France, used to say, will be of the greatest assistance to them, not only in teaching them how to reason well and arrive at right conclusions, but in putting them in a position to defend the orthodox faith against the captious and often sophistical arguments of adversaries.[10]
18. Next come the sacred sciences, properly so called-Dogmatic and Moral Theology, Sacred Scripture, Church History and Canon Law. These are the sciences proper to the priest-in them he receives a first initiation during his sojourn in the senior seminary, but he must pursue his studies in them throughout the remainder of his life.